Released in October 1995, Ken Loach’s
Land and Freedom charts the experiences of idealistic, unemployed Liverpudlian David Carne, who joins the fight against Fascism in the early days of the Spanish Civil War. Enmeshed in his own side’s political infighting, he learns the compromise and disillusionment of civil war. Critics and viewers noted the similarity between the story narrated in the film and George Orwell's book
Homage to Catalonia, in which the author wrote one of the more famous accounts of the war, that of his own experience as a volunteer in the ILP Contingent, part of the POUM militia.
Following interest in
Land and Freedom, Abel Paz, a militant in the Spanish Civil War and author of
Durruti in the Spanish Revolution, went on a tour of dozens of public meetings in Italy. The October 1995 interview by the Giuseppe Pinelli Archive in Milan can be
viewed here with English subtitles.